Aura Alert started life as a test for the App Store, in advance of a 3d indie game I’m working on.
The goals were:
Get something finished and on the App Store quickly. Understand the technology/revenue stream/of this saturated market.
Which led to:
Make something that is more of a toy than a game.
Text-based or minimally styled so I don’t spend months labouring over animation etc.
I knocked up a basic random fortune-cookie type of game in, a couple of hours in Unity3D. Originally in javascript but then moved over to C#. I needed something about the interaction to be unique, visual and have some kind of ‘meaning’, so came up with the Aura thing which is a scripted particle effect.
I tried Aura App with some people in a local tavern and the basic ‘toy’ was well received (amongst drunken people) who passed around the iPhone and laughed at their results.
As a throwaway toy it was fine, achieved my goals and I learned a lot technically and production-wise and had something working on the App Store. I should have maybe left it there.
Then unbidden, in direct contravention of the goals, my mind kicked-in and devised a whole complex back-story to explain the Aura stuff.
Now Aura Alert starts as toy, shares a story, offers a mystery then asks for a solution. It is not finished.